Victor is a moody, temperamental,
curmudgeon. He is 60 years old, a Virgo and
recently made redundant [forced to retire as
a security guard]. As he said “I’ve been
replaced by a box... It’s standard procedure
apparently for a man my age. The next stage
is to stick you inside one.”

Victor Meldrew the Grump

Margaret Meldrew, nearing her 60s, is Victor’s
extremely patient wife of 34 years who now has
to put up with her husband’s rants and raves
since he no longer has a job to go to. On
occasion, Victor finds employment (as a
chauffeur, or a lollipop man or gardner, for
example) but his bad attitude quickly gets him
fired. Victor’s catchphrase is "I don't be-LIEEEEEEEVE
it!!!"

The Meldrew’s family included a son named Stuart
who died as a child; Margaret’s mother [died in
1993] and her god-daughter, Jennifer; Victor’s
accident-prone brother, Alfred and cousin
Geoffrey. The Meldrew’s friends included their
next-door neighbors Patrick and Pippa Trench at
17 Riverbank Road [Victor‘s feuds with Patrick
after a garden gnome incident]; the McVites, who
replace the Trenches as neighbors when they
moved in 1997; Nick Swainey [from 21 Riverbank
Road], an age concern worker who looks in on
Victor and his situation; April and Vince Bluett,
owners of a seaside resort; Margaret’s gossipy
friend Mrs. Warboys; and a pair of boring old
friends, Ronnie and Mildred.

Margaret, Victor, Patrick and Pippa

During Victor’s retirement he contends with
fears of death, hypochondria, being mugged,
hernias and sunburned feet. In his spare time he
takes art lessons drawing nude women, writing a
situation comedy, playing with his ventriloquist
dummy and reviving his old magic act. Margaret,
on the other hand, dreams of traveling and joins
an amateur dramatic society.

"Someone stood up for me on the bus today…looked
at me as if I was some sort of living skeleton
dangling from the rail."

In 2000, Victor is killed - run over by a hit
and run driver - while returning from a failed
school reunion (no one showed up). Strangely, a
witch had predicted in 1995 that Victor would
come to an untimely end.

Ironically, Margaret learns a few weeks later
that her new friend, Glynis was responsible for
running over her husband. A while later, a
determined Victor returned as a ghost to haunt
Margaret. Of course, he continued to rant an
rave about everything, but the now widowed
Margaret could not see nor hear anything her
deceased husband had to do or say. Victor soon
realized (a la the movie The Sixth Sense) that
he was dead..."I don't believe it!"

Theme Song Lyrics
(Co-written and sung by Eric Idle)

Opening Tune

They say
I might as well face the truth
That I am just too long in the tooth
So I'm an OAP and weak-kneed
But I have not yet quite gone to seed
I may be over the hill now that I have
retired
Fading away but I've not yet expired
Clapped out, run down, too old to save
One Foot in the Grave

Closing Tune

They
say I might as well face the truth
That I am just too long in the tooth
I've started to deteriorate
And now I've passed my own sell by date.

Oh I am no spring chicken it's true
I have to pop my teeth in to chew
And my old knees have started to knock
I've just got too many miles on the clock.

So I'm a wrinkly, crinkly, set in my ways
It's true that my body has seen better
days
But give me half a chance and I can still
misbehave
One Foot in the Grave,
One Foot in the Grave,
One Foot in the Grave.

*OAP means "Old Age Pensioner"

TRIVIA NOTE: The Meldrew’s originally lived at
37 Wyngate Drive ( 770301) but when they went
on vacation to Athens their house was
accidentally demolished. So popular was the
Victor Meldrew character that after he died in
the fall of 2000, fans of the show started
laying flowers at Shawford Railway Station in
Hampshire where the final scenes were filmed! To
learn more about the Meldrew family, read the
books One Foot in the Grave written by David
Renwick (BBC Books, 1992); and One Foot on the
Stage: The Biography of Richard Wilson (Weidenfeld
& Nicolson, 1996).

Comedian Bill Cosby loosely adapted the series
for an American audience in the retitled Carsey-Werner
produced series COSBY/CBS/1996-2000. In the
remake Cosby starred as Hilton Lucas, a man laid
off from his job and Phylicia Rashad appeared as
Ruth, his long-suffering wife. Cosby and Rashad
had previously played husband and wife on the
sitcom THE COSBY SHOW/NBC/1984-92.

The phrase "One foot in the grave" is attributed
to the 1647 play The Little French Lawyer (act
1, scene 1) written by Francis Beaumont and John
Fletcher. Ancient Greek historian/biograoher
Plutarch (circa 45-125 A.D.) stated in his work
On the Training of Children the sentiment "An
old doting fool, with one foot already in the
grave."